


I Lived

by Benedicthiddleston



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, some mildly uncomfortable content, songfic inspiration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 09:32:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2264637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Benedicthiddleston/pseuds/Benedicthiddleston
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That reality between life and death that portrays the memories and the future of one James Tiberius Kirk. He wants - He wants to <i>live</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Lived

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song “I Lived” by OneRepublic. 
> 
> I own nothing and no one.
> 
> There is mentions of child abuse, but nothing graphic.

_I want you to know why I couldn't let you die... why I went back for you_

_Because you are my friend_

Jim slammed a fist into the white wall. “DAMN IT, DAMN IT, DAMN IT, DAMN IT!!!”

“Yelling will do nothing for you.”

Jim pulled his fist away from the wall, his eyes focused on the white of the never-ending whiteness extending in every direction around him. He didn’t look behind him to the figure who had spoken moments before. “So this is how it ends. How it all ends,” he whispered, defeat seeping into his veins, into his bones.

“A choice you made – selflessly, might I add.”

Jim’s mind shifted back to that moment when he’d decided to take that jump – to go into the warp core, forcing his Chief of Engineering, Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott, to stay behind in the falling ship’s atmosphere – he knew it was a death sentence. He’d just needed the courage.

“It wasn’t brave. It was foolish.” He sank to his knees, feeling tired. Overwhelmed by grief. “So much I haven’t gotten to experience. Spock – god, what I did to him… and Bones. He’s gotta be – I fucked up. I fucked up so bad.”

The figure behind him stepped closer, resting a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “Do you want to see?”

Jim sighed. _Do I have a choice_?

And then it happened – all at once.

_His first kiss_

_Standing up to Kodos_

_Sitting in the Captain’s chair for the first time on the_ Henry

_Punching that stupid Cadet at the bar in Iowa_

_Kissing Spock Vulcan style_

_“Mom. MOM! MOM! DON’T GO!!!”_

_Watching Sam leave and then throwing that antique convertible over the quarry wall_

_The bruises from Frank_

_“Where should we go?” Standing on the bridge of the_ Enterprise _and smiling at Spock_

_Jumping off the drill to catch Sulu_

_Punching Khan_

_Almost losing Spock in that Volcano_

_Fierce determination to SAVE EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING_

_Tarsus IV bodies_

_“Five years in space! THIS IS GOING TO BE AWESOME!”_

_Letting Bones give him another hypo for allergies_

_Sitting in the dark, mourning the loss of his surrogate father_

_Punching the kid who said his father was no hero_

_“It’s called_ Pon Farr _. He’s gotta mate with someone soon, Jim.”_

_“To Amanda Grayson. May she forever live in our hearts.”_

_Stepping onto the bridge of the_ Enterprise _with his crew waiting for him_

_Nero’s hand around his neck_

_Getting stabbed by another masked native on another damn hostile planet_

_“Damn those plants and their pollen!”_

_“I cherish thee, t’hy’la.”_

_“Please, don’t go, please – Spock, I need you – oh god, no-“_

_The half played chess board in their quarters_

_Frank’s belt_

_Beating the_ Kobayashi Maru

_Pike’s laughter in regards to an astrophysics question and Jim’s answer_

_Academy students on the_ Enterprise _._

_His beautiful, brilliant lady rechristened after Khan_

_Skipping not just the 3 rd and 4th grades, but finding 8th grade math to be completely stupid_

_Migraines at the worst of times_

_Snuggling in bed with Spock on their off days_

_A hand raised in the ta’al, pressed against glass_

_A fading view of the world_

“I want to live again. I want – I want –“

_What is it?_

_It’s a boy._

_Let’s call him Jim._

_Father was Captain of a starship_

_Saved 800 hundred lives_

_I dare you to do better_

Jim gasped awake into the bright world of reality, the serene whiteness of whatever had been gone and disappeared into the fog, and waiting for him were his best friends – Bones and Spock.

“I died.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic. You were _barely_ dead.”

\-----------

_There will always be those who mean to do us harm. To stop them, we risk awakening the same evil within ourselves. Our first instinct is to seek revenge when those we love are taken from us. But that's not who we are... When Christopher Pike first gave me his ship, he had me recite the Captain's Oath. Words I didn't appreciate at the time. But now I see them as a call for us to remember who we once were and who we must be again. And those words: Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Her five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before._

_I did it all._

_I swear I lived._

**Author's Note:**

> Memories encompass both movies, fanon ideas, and my own future hopes for Kirk/Spock, along with just showing Jim his life and what he has ahead of him (or in his case, what WOULD have been since he was still dead at the time of witnessing these memories and images)


End file.
